Gourmet World

Gourmet World (グルメ界, Gurume-kai) is the name given to a region consisting of over 70% of the world of Toriko. In contrast to its relatively hospitable counterpart, the smaller Human World, the Gourmet World exclusively consists of extremely dangerous environments that most humans cannot occupy.
The Gourmet World is the home of the world of Toriko's most powerful wild beasts, often with capture levels much higher than 100, and has extreme climates that change suddenly and can differ greatly within just feet of each other. Indeed, the beasts of the Gourmet World are so powerful that even massive armies and artillery barrages fail to slow them. As a result, only a relative handful of individuals in the entire world are powerful enough to survive there. The only organizations known to be headquartered in the Gourmet World are the mighty criminal enterprise called the Gourmet Corp., and the IGO President's secret elite force of hand-picked civilians, the 0th Biotope.

Toriko World Map. The regions outside the rectangular boundary line represent the Gourmet World.

The Ingredients in the Gourmet World are vastly superior to those of the Human World, such that extremely high-level Gourmet Hunter like Jiro often have a Full Course Menu consisting exclusively of Gourmet World ingredients. The Full Course ingredients of the legendary Gourmet Hunter Acacia can only be found in the Gourmet World as well. For this reason, beasts from the Gourmet World usually do not bother venturing into the Human World as the food there is comparatively 'bad'.

When creatures from the Gourmet World do appear in the Human World, it is usually because they were chased out by stronger beasts, and thus most that try to enter are "small fries". The main exception is the Four Beast, a powerful creature from the Gourmet World that feeds exclusively on humans, having developed a unique 'taste' for them long ago. It awakens and migrates to the Human World every few centuries and consumes millions of humans at a time.

Entering the Gourmet World is a nearly impossible task whether attempted by land, sea, or air. In the sky, massive walls of impassable cyclones mark the aerial border of the Gourmet World. By sea, the deadly poisonous ocean current "Poison Tide" renders ocean travel impossible. Only the land routes are considered passable. The three land routes that connect to the Gourmet World are Zabel Island's "Waterfall Basin of Life", Yutou Island's "Harbor of Evil Spirits" and the Wak Continent's "Three Way Road". Of the three, the "Waterfall Basin of Life" is comparatively the safest.

In the Gourmet World there are eight incredibly strong beasts whose ancestors have lived from ancient times surviving through mass extinction events rivaling creatures and dangerous weather, gaining supremacy over the other beasts of their species and others. They are known as the Eight Kings who rule over the eight continents of the Gourmet World. The Gourmet World enters 'Night' when every single member of the Eight Kings become active, which causes the wild beasts to become stronger and the environment to become harsher.

In Gourmet World money is not a means by which trading is done. Instead a barter system is applied, where one must trade ingredients for food or supplies or any product.

Recently the Four Heavenly Kings were given training tasks by Ichiryu in order to prepare them for the Gourmet World. Each task would take them to environments so extreme and ingredients so unusual that they are almost comparable to similar ones in the Gourmet world. They have since then completed all of the IGO presidents tasks and may now be ready to enter the Gourmet World.

Some continents, known as Stray Islands, float above the skies of Gourmet World and constantly wander of location. It is unknown if these lands have always been up there or if they originally were located on the surface.

Generally, the Gourmet World is composed of eight huge continents of landmass and islands:

After his battle against Grinpatch, Coco discovers a strange calorie absorbing bedrock with Gourmet Cells in it deep below the Cooking Festival Stadium. After the events at the Cooking Stadium, Coco then goes on to consult with a well known geologist, and learns that the mineral he found can be obtained from anywhere, with the exception of the Central Human World.

With this in mind, Coco developed a theory about the real origin of the Gourmet World and non-Central Human World.

According to Coco's theory, it is implied that the Human World is in fact the remnants of a planet that looked similar to present-day, real-world Earth (although with somewhat differently shaped continents) which was hit by a meteorite made out of the same parasitic bedrock mineral several hundred million years ago, prior to the current storyline, and it was capable of growing by absorbing its surrounding energy. Over time, it made a new mantle and crust and became many times bigger than the original planet, suddenly unleashing a whole new generation of organisms and ingredients. The new surface would end up becoming the Gourmet World and the original planet surface became the Central Human World.